Fierce & Fast: Quick workouts to include in your plan!

By targeting certain muscle groups in a circuit style fashion, you elevate your heart rate, burn tons of calories and continue to build strong, lean muscles while maximizing both your conditioning and your time.

The three circuits below give you the option to focus on upper or lower body, along with a full-body metabolic circuit. You can tailor your circuits to fit your weekly routine, and each workout should have you in and out of the gym in approximately 30 minutes.

Upper and Lower Body Focus

The upper and lower body focus utilizes a rep. range of 12-15 for each exercise, and focuses on compound movements in order to target the major muscles of the upper and lower body. The upper focus targets the chest and back, while utilizing the synergistic muscles of the biceps and triceps. Overhead work is also included.

The lower body workout targets the quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes, while also including core stabilization. The erector spinae muscles of the lower back are also activated during your squatting and deadlift movements.

Total Body Metabolic

The total body workout includes three mini-circuits that include multi-joint movements that hit all the major fat burning muscles of the body while keeping your heart rate elevated in typical circuit-style fashion. At the end of each circuit, there is a plyometric movement to blast calories and improve your overall conditioning.

The more muscles you can engage in each movement or exercise you complete means increased muscle fiber activation, which equals a greater release of the key fat burning hormones your body needs to help you meet your goals in a time efficient manner.

When we utilize all these fat-burning muscles at once, while keeping the heart rate elevated throughout your workout session, the body has to continue working hard in the 48 hours following to repair and recover properly (also known as EPOC-Excess Post Oxygen Consumption) which maximizes the effects of your workout without adding extra time in the gym.

Work through the circuit challenging yourself with weight loads. If you find you work quickly through the circuit, you can either increase your weight loads or complete another round! If you need to take rest between each mini circuit, keep it no longer than 90 seconds.

Considerations

Make sure to complete a warm-up that includes dynamic movements to increase blood flow to the working muscles of each circuit in order to maximize intensity and range of motion while also avoiding injury. Remember, when working with a higher rep. range, the focus is not specifically on lifting very heavy loads, but rather keeping your movements biomechanically correct while keeping your heart rate and tempo elevated. For the upper and lower body focus, complete the circuit 3 times and rest no more than 60 seconds between each movement and no more than 90 seconds between each round. Happy Lifting!

Upper Body Focus

Wide Grip Pulldown: 12-15 reps.
Inverted Smith Pull-up: 12-15 reps.
Underhand Smith Machine Row: 12-15 rep
Alternating Incline Chest Press: 12-15 reps. (Hammer Machine)
Clean and Press: 12-15 reps.
Overhead Press: 12-15 reps.

Lower Body Focus

Deadlift: 12-15 reps.
Barbell Sumo Squat: 12-15 reps.
Smith Machine Step Up: 12-15 reps.
Dumbbell Split Squat: 12-15 reps. (Pump at bottom)
Donkey Kick: 12-15 reps. (Smith Machine)
Kettlebell Squat Jump: 12-15 reps.

Total Body Metabolic Circuit

Yours in health and fitness,

Lindsay Kent

BeautyStrong ~ Pre-Workout Matrix
BeautyRecover ~ BCAA Refuel
BeautyWhey ~ Gourmet Protein Shake

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